In the past, shovels have been utilized for digging holes. Although there are different sizes of shovels, the lever action upon which the shovels rely increases disturbance of the area and makes replacement of the surrounding media a broken mix of what was there beforehand. Frequently, the importance of maintaining the appearance of the area is as important as the reason for creating the hole, for example, a manicured lawn. A shovel may damage a utility or sprinkler line or be damaged by an over grown sprinkler. Post hole diggers use a pinching action which also increases disturbance of the area and would break a sprinkler. A shovel would present a problem of neatly deposit soil or fertilizer into a small opening or of carrying the soil or fertilizer across a distance without spilling the contents. The additional ability provided by a rake is also a missing benefit not found in previous tools.
There are improvements on shovels and post hole diggers discussed in the prior art. For example, there is a shovel with wings, but the lever action of this shovel would still break or pull up a sprinkler and disturbs the lawn. There is also an improvement on a post hole digger that minimizes the physical effort involved, but it still uses the pinching jaws that would damage a sprinkler head and/or mixes the lawn with the soil, thus harming the appearance of the lawn. Improvements on scoops are also shown but lack the above mentioned benefits.
None of the devices of the prior art individually or in combination teach a system that enables one to remove a plug of lawn and soil using suction while creating a hole with a minimal disruption to the surrounding area. Nor do the devices of prior art allow one to remove the soil from around a sprinkler head or other protuberance without damage to the sprinkler or protuberance with ability to scoop and neatly contain the contents. The use of the tool as a rake along with the mentioned benefits are not found in prior art.
Accordingly, there is a need for a tool to assist gardeners and repairmen in creating a hole and repairing the underground utility or sprinkler lines with a minimal amount of damage to the surrounding area with the ability to scoop and neatly deposit needed material while providing the rake like benefits.